Rem 700 sps throws random fliers updated post 51

icehunter121

icehunter121

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I picked up 3 remington 700 sps stainless rifles and 2 of them like to throw random fliers. The 2 are 30-06 and 300 win mag. Puts two into just about one hole then throws the 3rd one. I have tried 9 different loads out of each rifle and its weird to say the least. Both rifles are free floated, bedded and triggers tuned. Scopes are known to be good. Now before some one says I am flinching the 06 and 300 are varmint rifles to me as I usually dont shoot small calibers and regularly clover leaf 3 shot groups with my .458 off the bench.

Even a load that worked last time I shot it and was under a inch now measures 1.5 inches. All ammo shows no pressure signs. 20 degrees and a slight tail wind. Shot off sandbags. In the 06 I was trying hornady 150gr. interlocks and the 300 was using 150 gr. partitions. Doing some reading it seems like other guys have had the same thing happen and they said the stocks on the sps are crap. I have even taken and filled the forend with bedding and strenghtened it up with a 3/16 keystock running the length of it. I even tried 3 shots with 5 minutes between them to no avail. I am thinking of dropping a set of pillars into them to give the whole action a little more rigidity and take some flex out of the stock. Maybe the side walls on the stock are flexing and bowing with each shot?

Any one else had this?
 
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The sps rifles that I have shot off a bench are barrel/action front heavy because the buttstock is so light. Because of this I find they are very susceptible to how I hold them, shoulder and cheek pressure.

I’d put those actions in better stocks and see if it makes a difference.
 
Buckmastr said:
The sps rifles that I have shot off a bench are barrel/action front heavy because the buttstock is so light. Because of this I find they are very susceptible to how I hold them, shoulder and cheek pressure.

I’d put those actions in better stocks and see if it makes a difference.
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I have noticed that with these rifles,that the butt is very light. Another thing that struck me is that when I put the rifle into a cradle and lock the butt and forend in it takes very little pressure to move the barrel side to side. I can get them to move with a pinky finger which leads me to believe that they may be flexing behind the mag well as from there forward is more or less solid now. Or flexing in the mag well perhaps.
 
I suspect you still haven't found the load the rifle likes. 9 different loads really isn't that much testing for a factory rifle. What loads have you tried?
I recently played with a .223 with about the same issue I found I need to have a big jump for the gun to shoot.
Not much of a 300 guy but for the 30/06 give 4064 (51g ish)with a quality 150 grain bullet, maybe an accubond.
 
twosmokinspades said:
I suspect you still haven't found the load the rifle likes. 9 different loads really isn't that much testing for a factory rifle. What loads have you tried?
I recently played with a .223 with about the same issue I found I need to have a big jump for the gun to shoot.
Not much of a 300 guy but for the 30/06 give 4064 (51g ish)with a quality 150 grain bullet, maybe an accubond.
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I have used the interlock in at least 40 rifles and never had accuracy issues. Even my 416 rigby with 400 gr. interlocks shoots .75-1.00 all day long. I tried some accubonds once in the rigby and the group was measured in feet!! Never wasted the money on them again and still have just about a box full sitting here to use on gophers some day.

The 06 was loaded with IMR 4064, H4350 and IMR 4895. The 300 now has had IMR 4350, H4831,RL22, H4350. The H4831 is most promising as that powder has worked in at least 6 different 300"s I have worked with as well as 20 or so various other calibres like 257WBY, 7mm rem mag,7 wby mag,340 wby,300wby etc etc. CCi large rifle mag primers were used in all. Each powder had 3 different loads with each load increasing by .5 over the previous load.
 
horseman2 said:
When this SPS stock was bedded with pillars the center rib was removed and a 1/4" aluminum channel was devconed in to stiffen the fore end.
Removing any stock pressure against the barrel eliminates flyers.
My 11 year old grandson shot a 0.83" 3-shot group with this 243 Winchester at 300 yards.

https://hosting.photobucket.com/alb...psvabfkxsz.jpg?width=450&height=278&crop=fill
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Same thing done on mine except mine is filled right to the forend tip and used a steel keystock as I couldnt find aluminum or stainless in a timely fashion! In fact I couldnt find any at all!! I just dont have pillars in it . It also has a very nice freefloat so that is not causing the stray shots. Whats also weird or a good thing is that I loaded up the same loads and shot them on 2 different occasions with the same results. So that shows I am consistent and something else is screwy.
 
I have never worked with an SPS, but have been messing with a no-name synthetic that I thought that I could stiffen up - even bought half dozen carbon arrow shafts to use. However, I noticed that the thing acted like a hinge, way back along magazine opening - so could get the forearm very stiff, but it would still want to flex up/down/sideways because it was moving way behind the recoil area - as if "stiffening" needed to extend back past the recoil area into that magazine well. At that point I gave up - never did get a "stiffened" stocks so far as I was concerned... Just a comment for you - perhaps you can discover the "secret" that I could not discover.
 
After viewing the gun powder that you use, I suggest to try slower burning powder. Ex: Alliant #22, 23, 25, 26 - IMR-7828, Hodgdon 1000, MagPro. My first choice would be the Alliant powder....very, very stable gun powder. The biggest issue is to find any gun powder...........best of luck!
 
Potashminer said:
I have never worked with an SPS, but have been messing with a no-name synthetic that I thought that I could stiffen up - even bought half dozen carbon arrow shafts to use. However, I noticed that the thing acted like a hinge, way back along magazine opening - so could get the forearm very stiff, but it would still want to flex up/down/sideways because it was moving way behind the recoil area - as if "stiffening" needed to extend back past the recoil area into that magazine well. At that point I gave up - never did get a "stiffened" stocks so far as I was concerned... Just a comment for you - perhaps you can discover the "secret" that I could not discover.
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Full length aluminum bedding block comes to mind!! Or maybe that big green filing cabinet out in my back alley..
 
yup, two of my magnum sporter weight hunting rifles do the same thing two almost touching and the third a ways away....I don't really consider this much of a handicap....to me the most important is the first "cold barrel shot" and the second follow up shot....if the first two don't do it there is a problem....
 
icehunter121 said:
Full length aluminum bedding block comes to mind!! Or maybe that big green filing cabinet out in my back alley..
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I swapped out my 700's original plastic stock with a bell and carlson fibreglass stock with full aluminum bedding block and now it shoots sub moa all day long.
 
Both rifles I shot on 2 separate occasions with the same loads. Last night I took all the targets,measured them and laid them out on the floor in order. First 2 shots are sub moa with the 06 going around .5 with some loads and then the 3rd shot is always to the right and either high or low but opening the groups to to 1.5 to 2.0 inches give or take. Now if both guns are doing this on different occasions to me that "should" rule out scope issues.
 
icehunter121 said:
Both rifles I shot on 2 separate occasions with the same loads. Last night I took all the targets,measured them and laid them out on the floor in order. First 2 shots are sub moa with the 06 going around .5 with some loads and then the 3rd shot is always to the right and either high or low but opening the groups to to 1.5 to 2.0 inches give or take. Now if both guns are doing this on different occasions to me that "should" rule out scope issues.
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Wouldn't keep putting 2 in the same place and 1 somewhere else if it was a scope issue no.

Thinking the others have nailed it. Its bedding. Thats why not only the phenomenon itself is repeatable but the location of the 3rd shot (the flyer) is itself very repeatable.
 
I found three shot groups pretty hard to read in terms of what was going on. Maybe get one or two sub MOA groups, often with an equal number on the other side of MOA. I found that once I stuck with 5 shot groups, the differences between loads became much easier to “read” and often found the first three in the group were often not good indicators.
 
I noticed similar - used to fire 5 rounds at target - walk up to see group - no clue in what order they landed on the target - scope could clearly make out the aiming point, but could not see the bullet holes - especially if they landed in black. Now I use a more powerful spotting scope - get all excited to see two touching at first - so me or the rifle just go on a build a "normal" 1 1/2" or 2" group around those first two. I do not recall doing as OP did though - consistently knowing he gets first two holes very close - repeatedly. The little bit of statistics that I took suggests that there is relatively predictable increase in "group size" as more shots fired - sample size increase - reflects ultimate "capacity" if the system. So, in a way, a 10 round group is better predictor of where next shot will land - if the system has not changed. As hunter, I tended not to be terribly interested in "group size" - heresy to some, I suppose - but my concern and interest is where does the first clean, cold barrel shot land, and maybe the next one - did not really care about what the rest would do, except to the extent they would help me to predict where that first one would go. As a result, not uncommon to go out to targets with several rifles - my hunting rifle gets fired once - after three clean dry patches through that oiled bore - same as it gets when I go hunting - I want to know where that shot lands. Other rifles get used to "pass the time" - to gain trigger time, etc.
 
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Started doing the same here. Have a "practice" or "fun" shooting rifle and the hunting rifle stays ready for hunting. Feels like you have a winning system there

As for the group shooting, I like a small white square on a cardboard background to see the bullet holes in, cause I'm a lazy git ;)

You said it though. The statistics keeping makes all the diff. When you can say with consistency which shot goes where....its telling.
 
Joel said:
Wouldn't keep putting 2 in the same place and 1 somewhere else if it was a scope issue no.

Thinking the others have nailed it. Its bedding. Thats why not only the phenomenon itself is repeatable but the location of the 3rd shot (the flyer) is itself very repeatable.
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Bedding is fine,I think its a flimsy stock issue. I took a wood classic stock last night and dropped the box mag into the well and checked to see how tight it is. Its fairly enclosed with about1/32 of a inch around it for gap. Then I took one of the sps stocks and holy crap..at the front of the mag box its gotta be just over 1/8th of a inch gap on both sides tapering back to about 1/16 gap at the rear of the box. That leaves no real wall thickness on the stock at the mag box area. Tonight I just might take and run a steel square beside a rifle and flex the stock over and see where its flexing at.....to be continued!! LOL... just did some measuring wood versus sps synthetic. At the front of the mag well in approx. the same position the width of the opening on the rem. classic wood stock is .885...the sps stock opening width is .965

The wall thickness on the wood stock at the front of the mag well at approx. the same position is .490 The wall thickness of the sps is .370 Now by my math but I may be wrong that gives us a gain of .320 thickness on the wood as compared to the sps. ( all measurements combined) Even if you took and added the .120 of wall thickness to both sides of the sps stock that would make a big difference in rigidity.
 
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